It was never supposed to be this way.
In 2022, after what felt like a lot less than 25 years, give or take, IWA Mid South closed its doors. It wasn’t another building lost, or a roster mutiny, or any of the usual drama that caused things to stop for IWA; it was for real. Ian Rotten finally burned the candle completely down to a charred, waxy mess, and that was that, it seemed.
Except, something unlikely happened.
For any fans of IWA Mid-South back in the 2000s, Jim Fannin is a name you know very well. The man was all over those old VHS and DVDs, starting as a local promoter in Lexington during college when Ian Rotten was just beginning his run with IWA Mid South, and from there he became a ring announcer, and the rest was history.
By the time he left the promotion in 2009, Jim had become a respected commentator and easily their greatest heel manager ever with the infamous Fannin Family full of legends in the making. Jim was burnt out, much like the whole business seemed to be in IWA MS itself in 2022.
In 2025, Jim decided to come back to wrestling and share his story.
Fannin’s Flashbacks began as a fun YouTube podcast for Jim to host, sharing his story and that of all the old alums of the IWA MS locker room. In a sea of homogenized, boring discourse on the internet wrestling “community” (more like a gulag most of the time, but I digress), his shows stood out because they weren’t trying to entertain you as much as they were giving you an oral history firsthand. As if you were sitting in a field in a holy land in the Mississippi River basin, with the Muscogee Indian chiefs telling the great tales of their people, the Church of IWA began to enter the discussion again.
As the show began to gain steam, something bigger was brewing. Jim Fannin announced in late 2025 that he wasn’t just doing the podcast, but he would be returning to managing on the indies, and his first booking would be managing Mickie Knuckles, whom he had never managed but always wanted to.
She’s a certified deathmatch legend these days, and those of us who could remember the I Love Mickie IWA angle both knew this was something special. That led to more bookings, specifically from one company based out of Indianapolis: WrestleArts.
WrestleArts is more than a wrestling promotion; it is a legit 501(c)(3) non-profit that uses its shows as a way to teach students in the area event production and art, which is stuff you really don’t see taught much in this current day. So in short, it’s wrestling for a cause, and it isn’t just a gimmick. The promoter is also a link to Fannin himself, former IWA wrestler Brandon Prophet. So when Fannin made it known he was coming back, Prophet saw the possibilities as well as realizing that Indy was an old IWA market and the synergy just made sense. Little did he know, he would be inviting a monster into his house.
March 28th came, and the Irving Theater was witness to a massive moment in Midwest indie wrestling. The booking was plain and simple: The Fannin Family is coming to WrestleArts, but what did that mean? During the Two out of Three Falls Number One Contender’s Match between Connor Hopkins and Brayden Lee, we found out. It would be Fannin who would aid Hopkins in victory, and after the match, the symbolic Fannin Family T-shirt was offered and accepted! The Family grew from Mickie to now Connor Hopkins, one of the Midwest’s best-kept secrets. A ghost of IWA past would add to the melancholy of the promotion.
The May 23rd show, WrestleArts 30, was the big one, though. Hopkins was the number one contender, but not yet the Triple Crown Champion; that title belonged to David Ali, who is another secret of the Midwest in his own right.
The match was really competitive, and it seemed like the Fannin Flames would be snuffed out just as they started to rise…but this is Jim Fannin, and he knows a thing or two. It was Ali who inadvertently took out the ref, and that opened up the big reveal of the next Fannin Family member, Trik Davis, who said hello with a Codebreaker.
Hopkins smartly took advantage, dropped Ali with an Exploder suplex, and the rest was history: a new champion had been crowned…or had they?
The bell would ring again, the match would restart, and Hopkins would not leave Irving with the title, but he didn’t leave empty-handed. In a last gasp of defiance, he would take two of the three triple crown title belts and run away, pained, but that’s really where the good stuff begins.
What followed were some of the best indie promos I’ve seen consistently anywhere. The idea was so simple, but the talent of everyone involved made it work.
So Jim Fannin was wronged, and those of us who watched IWA a lot back in the day know that doesn’t end well. He would enlist the services of a “consigliere,” his longtime college buddy Ben Rich, who was outfitted with a “law degree from the University of American Samoa,” and he would use his vast connection of friends who “may have clerked for Supreme Court Justices” in a couple of vignettes that would make Bruce Prichard in 1989 smile.
WrestleArts didn’t acquiesce; in fact, they outwardly rejected the protests from Fannin and his family, so that left him only one option: The Nuclear Option.
What followed was part Pulp Fiction spoof, part wrestling historian edging, when Fannin and Hopkins showed up to the 32nd WrestleArts show with a briefcase handcuffed to Fannin’s wrist. This was no gaggle of money, or a contract for a title match; no, this was indeed nuclear. Inside was a key to not just the history of Fannin’s entire career, but also a massive piece of the history of Midwest professional wrestling: the IWA World title. It was quickly handed off to Hopkins, and he was deemed THE champion of the promotion and the Midwest.
Some might see this and think, “Okay, and why does this warrant such praise?”
Mainly, because few companies or acts even bother to make a story so deep with history that isn’t their own. If Brandon Prophet at WrestleArts looked at things like most promoters, he wouldn’t have gotten it. He would have said, “It doesn’t fit what we’re doing,” and would have ignored it, but he knows the history. He was part of said history, and also, he knows this will stoke the fire of IWA that fans such as myself never wanted to go out. In short, he and the rest of the folks involved are smart.
They get the creative aspect of whatever pro wrestling is, and to me, that’s fucking cool!
It’s been announced that in early August, Fannin and another IWA Mid South legend, Nick Maniwa, will put on a memorial show for their friend and IWA legend Mark Wolf, called Last Resort, on November 1st this year at the Irving Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana.
